American Airlines Mechanic Gets 37 Month Prison Sentence

@ Ben -- Wow, what a shame. He should have been a politician instead.

I think the judge made a typo- it should be "years" instead of months.

"In fairness..." Really? A poor choice of words that probably unintentionally attempts to explain away pure recklessness and disregard for passenger safety. As a mechanic, he knew or should have known that what he was doing was incredibly wrong (no excuse) and possibly dangerous and could cause serious harm to those on board. I'm glad the courts didn't render the sentence thinking: 'well, at least it wasn't a brake line.' :-/

“In fairness” ??!!!

There is no justification for what he did and he should go to prison. Why do you offer an excuse for him?

This is a poor choice of words...
"In fairness, American Airlines had huge issues with their mechanics last summer, causing a countless number of cancelations and delays. "

There's no justification for this jerks actions. This could have caused a chain reaction of events, that could've led to more serious issues.

I normally don't nitpick words, but I do agree that saying "in fairness" in this context presents a false dichotomy here. Kind of like that politician who said there were “very fine people on both sides.”

“In fairness”

the attitude these days is to not judge anyone for anything, even if its morally or criminally wrong. the Z gen had the utmost respect for being politically correct.

Thirty-seven months is a slap on the wrist. It should have been 20 years. I hope this loser never works for an airline again.

The plane was never going to take off. Just have a mechanical delay. A reasonable sentence. If you read the article he’s put up with American for over 30 years.

Amazing that this isn't being covered by the MSM. Hmm... I wonder why....

No matter what issues you have at your job, you can never justify endangering passenger lives due to a spat with your employer. I've work at a hospital for over 15 years, would it be "in fairness" if I sabotaged someone's medicine or treatment because I had disagreements about my benefits with the hospital?

In fairness to Lucky...He was just reporting.

I don't know much about airplane mechanics, but was there a chance that this plane would have taken off with the tampered nav system? I'm guessing not, and the mechanic probably knew this. So I don't think any passengers were in potential danger.

"In fairness, American Airlines.." how sweet.

" So I don’t think any passengers were in potential danger." Easy to say when you or a loved when were not on the flight. Why is it so hard for some of you to condemn this act?

37 months is a ridiculously light sentence. Hundreds of people could have died because of this mechanic’s greed. Luckily the pilots caught the damage, but what if they didn’t? This could have turned into a horrible tragedy.

Some of the comments above are ridiculous. He's been a mechanic for over 30 years so he clearly knows what he's doing. If he really meant to cause harm to passengers, why would he tamper with the plane in such a way that it was so easily discoverable by the pilots?

@WEST COAST GUY
Airline travel is safe based on redundancies built in to the system. nevertheless, removing a major support is criminal. You never know what pressures a flight crew is under and either does not notice or accepts to fly with a defect.
The behavior was grossly criminal and might even be considered terrorism.

In fairness - Boeing's MCAS on their 737-Max was tested and approved by FAA - therefore they have absolutely no culpability to the two disasters that took place on those planes...

Horrible choice of words here, I think this article should be amended because it sounds like you are on the side of this "poor" mechanic who wasn't getting his $40/hr overtime.

And shame on any of you that think this maintenance guy should get off light because he "knew" what he was doing wouldn't cause a disaster. Now THAT is ridiculous.